


i'm a wolf child, howling for you

by captainharkness



Series: the adventures of smith, jones and harkness [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demisexuality, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Psychic Bond, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:43:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainharkness/pseuds/captainharkness
Summary: After what happened on the Valiant, the Doctor, Martha and Jack travelled together. While Jack tries to figure out why the TARDIS still doesn't like him on board, the Doctor gets hit with an aphrodisiac.Alternatively, the TARDIS is sick of this love-sick crap. Martha is inclined to agree.





	i'm a wolf child, howling for you

**Author's Note:**

> What will hopefully be the first in a long series of drabbles and possibly short multi-chapter installments following the ideal world in which Jack and Martha got to heal along with the Doctor. I've got to start knuckling down and writing the epic Marvel novel which me and my friend have been planning for like 3 years but with any luck, I can use this to help iron out any writing blocks in between chapters. 
> 
> Title taken from Wild Flower by The Cult.

Jack allowed his fingers to smooth over the page, soft yellow in colour and silky to the touch. An older book from Anadeia, a planet whose atmosphere was made almost entirely from neon. No trees would grow in its soil, so the natives started printing their books on finely woven fabric. The words were a little faded with age, but he could still make them out. The ones that were translated, at least.

He turned the page, to find the following several passages written in an obscure, slanting script. No doubt, the TARDIS’s idea of a joke.

“Give me a break,” he muttered, knocking a knuckle on the wall behind his bed.

Martha, the Doctor and him had landed on the third planet furthest from the sun in the Solymus Cloud; an intergalactic trading hub, Qoskeatov. It famously boasted that “ _ You can buy anything, from anywhere! _ ” in its extensive markets, great plains of sellers from tiny family-owned shops to multiplanetary corporations in giant tower blocks. Jack had been dozens of times; as a time agent, it had been an ideal place to investigate anachronistic objects, and as a con man, it’d had been the best place to make a quick buck. The whole place was a tourist trap.

As appealing as the silver towers and bustling crowds might have been, Jack elected to stay behind. Martha’s enthusiasm at the idea of a “ _ space shopping center _ ” had been catching, but he had something more important to do than trawl around markets.

Maybe he was getting old.

Throwing the mostly useless book aside, he scrubbed his hands down his face.

“Why’d you dump it in my room if you weren’t going to translate it for me?”

An itch, almost like a tiny static shock, nudged at the back of his brain. He hadn’t practiced psychic perception for years, but he could still recognise a psychic link when he felt it. The subtle sensation of someone - or something - making a connection. The TARDIS liked to drop in on him when she felt like it. Just a nudge, to let him know she knew he was there.

And maybe it didn’t have the malicious edge it did before. It was certainly no olive branch, more… begrudging intrigue. But it was nice that she wasn’t so offended by his presence anymore. That didn’t make it any less welcoming to feel like the very ship he slept in resented his being there.

Which is why he’d stayed behind. It was awkward enough trying to bond with a semi-sentient spacecraft without her over-protective driver hovering.

Walking over to the bookshelf, he let his eyes wander over the books the TARDIS had selected to appear in his room that day. The room itself remained mostly unchanged, save for the changes Jack himself made. But new books appeared and disappeared almost daily, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Some were fiction, others biographies, or studies, or essays. Some were bound in leather from animals he’d never seen, and some were so worn, their pages seemed to fall out with a single touch. Some were written in scripts he was familiar with, some were translated into English, and some looked nothing more than gibberish.

“What does it mean?” he muttered.

He, predictably, received no reply. There was nothing but the gentle hum of her engines as she sat, parked on some Qoskeatovi street corner. 

“C’mon, then,” Jack said, pushing off the wall, walking around the room, “You’ve got such an issue with me? Why haven’t you stranded me on some moon? Locked me in a cell?”

Still, she remained silent, but he continued, “Why am I here if you hate me so much?”

There was no flicker of lights or slamming of doors, nothing to indicate that she was even listening. There wasn’t even a nudge at the back of his mind to indicate a psychic connection.

Jack glanced up, an idea springing on him.

Reaching out, calling on every last bit of psychic science he could recall, Jack tried to find her, to make a link. If using words wouldn’t work, maybe a slightly different language would get through. Nothing with the Doctor was ever simple, there was no reason why his ship would be different, after all.

He grit his teeth, searching. It had been a few years. He was out of practice. The quiet darkness of the psychic plane was unfamiliar, daunting. All the heartbeats of the strangers outside blended together like a vibration, but he needed to find the right one. Like tuning a radio with a million frequencies, someone had told him. Someone far better at tuning radios than him.

All there was; darkness.

His concentration faltered, and like holding his hand too close to a flame, he jolted. Gasping, his eyes snapped open, the lights in his room suddenly too bright.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

The colours in his room seemed too stark, too plain, almost two dimensional. Groaning, he fell back on the bed, his arm over his eyes. So much for his big plans, bonding with the TARDIS.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there. Truthfully, it was a half cooked plan. He wasn’t much good at plans, but improv wasn’t doing him any favours. Jack wasn’t one to sulk in silence, but in the absence of better ideas, he was willing to stoop.

“Having a nap?”

Jack sat upright faster than he'd ever moved before. Years of military training had him almost completely aware of his surroundings before he'd fully opened his eyes, but the tension leaked out of him when he saw the Doctor leaning against his door frame. He was smiling, just a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth.

"Just... thinking."

The Doctor looked at him, that smile still playing on his face, soft but real. Genuine.

"Where's Martha?"  Jack asked.

"Exploring," the Doctor said, dismissively waving a hand, "Somewhere in the bio markets," Upon seeing Jack's confused expression, he shrugged, "She'll be fine. She saved the world, she can handle a market without me watching over her."

He was probably right. Martha would probably kick their asses for even debating it.

"That's true," he nodded, grinning, "So, what are you doing back?"

"I came back for you," the Doctor said plainly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"What do you mean, you came back for-"

The words died in his mouth, coming out as a shocked breath as the Doctor knelt on the bed beside him, smoothly swinging one leg over to straddle him. A thousand things went through his mind at once, but he seemingly could only concentrate on the dense weight balanced on his thighs, and the dip in the mattress where the Doctor had planted his hands beside Jack's ribs. Every smart remark, every joke, every innuendo - gone.

"I, what- Uh, I..." he stammered, "Am I missing something?"

The Doctor smiled again, so warm that Jack felt his whole body flush, "Oh, come on, Captain," He leaned forward, his hands shifting from the mattress to resting on Jack's chest. Jack laid very still, as if the slightest movement might disrupt whatever was going, barely daring to breathe. And then the Doctor put his mouth to the shell of his ear, voice dropping to a whisper, "You're the last person I thought I'd have to explain this to."

He felt his friend's teeth tug at his ear lobe, and then there was just sensation. His head swam as all the blood in his body seemed to flow down, and he was hard, instantly, and he wanted to make a joke about it but someone was kissing him, better than he'd ever been kissed before. Soft lips and a hand on his jaw, guiding him, as if he needed any incentive. His whole body felt warm, like he'd been laying in sunshine, not an inch of space between them anywhere they could touch.

It was the first press of an erection to his thigh that made him break it, reminding him that this was real, and happening, and it still didn't make sense.

"Woah, woah, wait-" he muttered, but the Doctor just sighed like he was already sick of not kissing him and just moved his mouth to Jack's neck instead, "What, what, why now? What's changed, Doctor? Why do you want this now?"

There was a pause, as if he was contemplating bothering to answer at all, before he leant back up. His eyes were sparkling, staring down at him, their faces just a few inches apart.

"What makes you think I haven't always wanted this?"

Jack's mouth went dry, his words so simple, so earnest.

"Why didn't you say something?"

The Doctor blinked a few times, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him, "I just, didn't. It wasn't right," Jack furrowed his brow, "But it is now, I want this."

Jack eyed him curiously, looking for any signs of contagion, or that this wasn't  _ his  _ Doctor, "You're sure?"

His only answer was to lower his mouth back down to Jack's, harder than before, more insistent. It was lips and tongue and teeth and it felt a little bit like being torn down, piece by piece, until all that was left was feeling, and heat. A hand slipped into his hair as the Doctor pressed his body to his. It was obvious. This was his answer, explicit.

"Ask me again," he murmured, his words little more than vibration against Jack's lips.

Jack had to swallow before he could speak, and even then, his words felt like gravel in his throat, "Are you sure you want this?"

Again, he was met with a bruising kiss. It was all the confirmation Jack needed, and he hauled them into a sitting position, wrapping an arm around the Doctor's slim waist to keep him close. Apparently, it had been the right choice, the Doctor smiling against him. It still didn't make sense, but Jack wasn't much tempted to stop... whatever it was. Better men than him had fallen before this man, and he wasn't so proud to deny himself it. Not when he'd wanted it for so long.

They got tangled in their rush to shed their clothes, hands bumping as they both reached for shirt buttons, desperate to keep kissing. Jack shoved the Doctor’s jacket off, dropping it on the floor somewhere, as the Doctor almost ripped the fabric of his shirt in his haste to get it off. His skin was startling cool on Jack’s bare chest, and he keened into it.

His hands roamed over Jack’s back, his arms, into his hair. All the time, hips moving against him, almost desperate for friction. It was unbelievably, unfathomably attractive.

Getting a hand under the Doctor’s thigh, he flipped them, settling between the cradle of his companion’s hips. It was even better, pressed together, every inch. Jack worked the buttons free on the Doctor’s shirt, tugging it loose. With every button, he let his mouth trail lower, down the Doctor’s chest, his stomach. His friend seemed frantic in his need to hold onto something, his hands swapping from clutching at Jack’s sheets to his hair. When Jack traced a line from his navel to his neck with his tongue, the Doctor made a sound somewhere between a whine and a sob, and his nails dug into the skin on Jack’s shoulders. He barely felt the sting, too concentrated on making him make that noise again.

Jack moved a hand between them to wrestle the Doctor’s trousers open, getting a hand around his cock. The Doctor jolted like he’d been electrocuted, mouth going slack where he’d been mouthing at Jack’s neck. Under different circumstances, he might have been inclined to take his time, to explore this new dynamic and all the promises it brought with it. But whatever had changed, the Doctor was frenetic, charged with energy, and Jack wasn’t feeling much better himself about taking it slowly.

Without hesitation, he began stroking the Doctor up and down his length, feeling him shudder with every upstroke. It was addictive, like being drunk on power, to have this greater being shaking beneath him. Jack coaxed every moan and whine out of him with precision, every second of it worth every year of waiting.

It was clear that neither of them were going to last long, the pressure building at the base of Jack’s spine, the Doctor holding onto Jack’s shoulders tight, his head thrown back. Suddenly, he didn’t want it to last, he wanted to see what it took for the Doctor to lose control, what it looked like.

Without warning, his companion wrestled them over so Jack was flat on his back. He barely had time to react to the sudden change before the Doctor shifted down, shoving his trouser zip down and pulling his cock out.

The few times Jack had dared allow himself to contemplate what would happen under those very circumstances, the Doctor had been slow and cautious. He’d never imagined the rushed eagerness, messy and beyond enthusiastic. His mouth was impossibly hot, wet, enough so that Jack felt his eyes roll back in his head, unable to concentrate on all five of his senses.

It felt like the overeager efforts of someone without much experience, and Jack wondered, uncharacteristically jealous, if someone had ever showed the Doctor how to do this. But as the minutes passed, he slowed down, pressed his tongue to the underside of the head, hollowed out his cheeks. It became clear, Jack realised with a rush of heat in his belly, that the Doctor was learning, studying. Dedicating space in that beautiful brain to the details of exactly how Jack wanted it.

That, more than anything, pushed him over the edge. He came with a shout, hands fisted in the sheets. It took a few seconds for the fog to clear, but when it did, the Doctor was pressing light kisses along his jawline, his own hard length rutting into Jack’s thigh insistently.

Slowly, Jack worked them back around so the Doctor was underneath him. It took some work - his bones felt like molasses, his head still foggy and unclear - but Jack found himself on his knees beside the bed. In the back of his mind, Jack recalled an old story the Doctor had told him; a lifetime ago, he had found himself on some primitive planet and accidentally gotten himself  deified. Jack wondered, dragging his mouth lazily across the exposed flesh of the Doctor’s thighs, if the people of Shion 5 had felt the energy of the time vortex and misunderstood it as divinity. Or if they too questioned what else this man could be but a god, on their knees before him.

He could all but feel the vibrations running through the Doctor’s entire body. A tightly wound coil, all that energy, like 1000 volts of electricity contained in a paper bag. Jack let his mouth slide down his companion’s cock, slowly, so as to savour the sensation of power, and to catch the sounds of desperation he made. He was still loose from his own orgasm, not feeling up to much spectacle. But he could make the Doctor feel good, could give him this, at least.

Whatever it was, it seemed to work. The Doctor held onto his hair, muttering something either too quiet for him to hear, or in Gallifreyan. Jack gripped onto his thighs, anchoring himself as his mouth moved up and down. He was too lost in the feeling - they both were - to notice the growing ache in his jaw or the burn in his knees. It seemed too trivial to care.

When he came, it was with a gentle gasp, and a hand around the back of Jack’s neck. Jack pulled back, struck by a need for oxygen that he hadn’t paid much attention too until he could breathe freely again. Hauling himself to his feet, suddenly far too aware of the space between them, he leant down to kiss the Doctor. He kissed him back, but when they seperated he blinked owlishly, as if Jack had done something wildly unbelievable.

“Are you okay?” 

The Doctor just continued staring at him, mouth red and obscenely swollen, “Yeah. I, just… yeah.”

Jack opened his mouth to double check, because although he was 100% confident in his ability to blow a man’s brains out through his cock, the sudden change to distant and almost detached was jarring. Worrying, in fact. His words were interrupted by the sound of the TARDIS door slamming, Martha’s voice echoing through to them.

“Doctor?” she yelled, “You better be in here!”

As if snapped out of hypnosis, the Doctor shot up off the bed, scrabbling to do his shirt back up. Jack watched, perplexed. Admittedly, Martha finding them in their current state would raise some questions, and they were both well aware of her feelings for the Doctor. It would be awkward, but it certainly didn’t seem cause for the raw panic with which the Doctor pulled his coat on, barely sparing him a glance as he darted out of Jack’s room.

Jack stared after him, perplexed. And, not that he would admit it, a little offended.

The sound of impending footsteps jolted him into action, snapping him out of the daze that had fallen over him. His trousers were still half way down his thighs, his shirt thrown somewhere far out of reach. Hurriedly pulling up his trousers, Jack attempted to make himself halfway decent as Martha walked in, perplexity written all over her face until she saw him desperetly tucking himself back in his trousers.

“Oh,” she said, staring down at the floor, clearly trying to hide a smile behind her hand, “Well, I guess, that makes sense at least.”

Jack finished zipping himself up, hastily searching for his t-shirt, but the Doctor had thrown it somewhere. Martha watched him, far more amused than she had any right to be. For the first time in a very long time, Jack felt a little self-conscious about being found half naked by a beautiful woman.

“When I saw him bolt down the corridor, all red faced and embarrassed,” she carried on, “I thought you’d had a fight. I mean, obviously this is better. It explains what he was yelling about in the market, anyway.”

Jack looked up, “What yelling?”

Martha rolled her eyes, “Oh, we were walking through this bio market, and some guy comes up to us with a bunch of flowers. Starts talking about, oh, your lady will love these, smell them, smell them. And you know what he’s like, it’s like walking through central London with a three year old, he’s got to touch everything. And what does he do? Smells them. Almost instantly, he collapses-”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, holding a hand up, “How does this explain-”

“I’m getting to it,” she said, shaking her head, “Anyway, I’m like, oh my God, someone’s killed the Doctor with a bunch of flowers. He sits right back up, right as rain, but then he starts going on about you, about how he’s got to get to you, he’s gotta find you. And, well,” Martha smirked, glancing down at his still bare chest, “I guess he got you good, huh, Captain?”

Jack glared half-heartedly at her, but she was still grinning, and her amusement was infectious. He scrubbed a hand over his face to hide his smile, before grabbing his t-shirt from under the bed and pulling it on.

“So, what, he got hit with a super strength aphrodisiac?”

Martha shrugged, “Looks like it,” she said, before looking up, eyes bright, “Funny though, isn’t it?”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know,” she said with mock casualness, “The Doctor inhales some space sex drug, and suddenly, the only person he can think about is you.”

Jack blinked, suddenly frozen still. There were implications to that. Implications he wanted desperately to consider, but he knew better. He knew better than to tempt fate or luck. He knew the Doctor better.

“There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for it,” he said simply.

Martha laughed, soft and genuine, “Oh, I think the explanation is crystal clear.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, a little harshly, but she didn’t seemed phased, “and it’s not that.”

“How many people,” Martha seemingly ignored him, “do you think he ran past to get to you? And I mean run. He really did, hell for leather. So fast I lost him, took me ages to find my way back. A hundred? Two hundred? Maybe even a thousand. It’s busy out there, you know-”

“Stop it,” he snapped. Immediately, he bit his cheek. She didn’t deserve to get yelled at.

Martha just shook her head, still smiling, “I suppose it’s a good thing you were hiding out here, at least. The rate he was going, you would have given the whole market a show. Speaking of, why were you hiding here? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re tired, you’re a shitty liar, Jack.”

He sighed. Martha Jones. Too smart for her own good. Too good for him, for the Doctor. For anybody, really. God, he loved her.

“The TARDIS still doesn’t like me,” he said bluntly, “It makes travelling a little depressing, you know? I was gonna spend the day trying to fix things with her.”

“Why would you think the TARDIS doesn’t like you?”

“Well, she won’t translate these bloody books, for one!” he laughed self-deprecatingly, picking up the book he’d been reading earlier and dumping it unceremoniously on the bed, “It’s just a feeling. Like I’m unwelcome, or she doesn’t trust me.”

Martha nodded, entering the room fully, “Or, like she’s conflicted?”

“Uh, yeah, actually. Exactly like that. Like she can’t decide if she wants me on board or not.”

There was a strange look on Martha’s face as she wandered around the bed to look at his bookshelf. She hummed, letting her fingers dance across the spines, eventually selecting one, and reading the blurb.

“A story of love and loyalty,” she read out, before putting it back, and selecting another one, “ _ The Complete History of Queken Marriage Rituals _ . Sounds thrilling,” Again, she replaced it, rolling her eyes.

“I see she translated them all for you, then?”

Martha nodded, “Yeah, all of them. Huh, the  _ Kama Sutra, Volume 383 _ .”

He made a mental note to find that one later.

Laughing softly under her breath, Martha seemed to pat the side of the shelves in appreciation, “Oh, you’re so smart.”

Jack furrowed his brow, “Thank you, but what exactly did I do?”

“Oh, not you,” she said, “The TARDIS. Jack, all these books are about love, and sex, and marriage. Don’t you see?”

Thinking back on it, all the ones he’d managed to read had been all pretty unified in theme. He hadn’t thought of it at the time. He wasn’t one for reading, really.

Martha sighed in disbelief, “Oh, you’re so blind. Both of you. You’re both idiots.”

“Hey-”

“It’s not the TARDIS that is conflicted, Jack,” Martha ignored him again, “It’s the Doctor. And he and the TARDIS have a psychic connection. She’s probably been picking up on his feelings, and they’re getting relayed to you. Or maybe she’d just annoyed that her driver won’t stop pining over his friend.”

“So why is she taking it out on me?” he asked exasperatedly, “And what do the books have to do with this?”

Martha gave him a shit-eating grin, grabbing a big leather bound book from the top shelf and tossing it on the bed. The title was written in clear English, but the cover was adorned with hauntingly familiar circular markings, “Considering his spacecraft just dumped a giant book about Gallifreyan mating rituals in your room, I think all she’s trying to say is,  _ take a hint. _ ”

\---

They left Qoskeatov in much the same way they left everywhere; in a rush. Onto the next adventure, which would be a recently colonized moon in the Aledarrean galaxy, then back to Earth to watch the first Olympic games, then to investigate a strange disease crippling Oskerion, which turned out, predictably, to be the King’s brother poisoning the water supply. So predictably, in fact, that he all but robbed Martha of a fiver in a poorly made bet.

All in all, none of them had stopped running for four days. Jack had barely seen the Doctor for more than ten straight minutes, not without Martha watching on with a smirk. It wasn’t until they were floating along the Madillion Cluster, Martha deep within the TARDIS on her observation deck, that Jack found a minute alone with him.

In some matters, tact and diplomacy would always be the safest course.

But, for all that he could talk, the Doctor wasn’t much of a bureaucrat. He was a man of action.

Jack could see him, just his legs, poking out from under the center console as he fiddled and repaired. More than once, Jack had suspected that he sabotaged his own systems so he had an excuse to hide in the machinery and not talk to anyone. That just wouldn’t do this time, though.

Grabbing his legs, Jack pulled him out from under the console with an undignified yelp of surprise.

“What in bloody hell-” he started, spitting his sonic screwdriver out, “Jack! What’s happened?”

Without a word, Jack dropped the large leatherbound book on the Doctor’s chest, making him choke out a breath. Martha had helpfully left it on his bed with a wink, and he couldn’t help but notice that it was fully translated. He might have had a skim through it.

The Doctor looked down at the book like a deer in headlights. Slowly, he sat up, struggling to his feet, avoiding Jack’s eye contact. His mouth opened, as if to speak, but then closed it again. Jack watched, amused, as the man who never shut up struggled to find his words. 

He took pity after a minute or two, “Trying to find something smart to say?”

“I, uh,” the Doctor stammered, “Uh, yes. Yes, I am.”

“Got anything?”

“No, nothing.”

Jack laughed, enjoying seeing his friend speechless for once. It seemed to break the tension the Doctor held in his shoulders. He put the book down, snickering to himself a little.

“So, aphrodisiac, huh?”

The Doctor nodded, pressing a few buttons on the console and turning the screen towards him so Jack could read it. There was a picture of a flower, with petals the colour of an orange sunset, the stigma large and round.

“ _ Zizia canadensis _ ,” the Doctor said, “Native to the Fycari System. Highly potent. The seller probably thought Martha and I were together, some kind of prank, I assume.”

“Strange prank,” Jack noted, “Interesting introduction into the sex life of my friendly neighbourhood Time Lord, though. Better than that book. Very… interactive.”

The Doctor levelled him with a stern look. It usually preceded “ _ stop it _ ” whenever Jack stopped to say hello to someone. It was a look he was very familiar with. This time, though, it was softer around the edges, like he couldn’t really be mad for Jack taking cheap shots at this.

“I did read it though,” he said, after a moment, “The book.”

When the Doctor didn’t respond, Jack continued, “Said some really funny things about Time Lords and their whole, monogamy shtick. Actually, the phrase was ‘mate for life’, but technically we didn’t mate since I’m not Time Lord, so-”

“That is,” the Doctor said hurriedly, running a hand through his hair, “a mistranslation.”

“So, translate it for me.”

He pulled his ear nervously, staring at the console. The Doctor flicked a few switches, let his fingers move over the controls distractedly, but Jack was almost certain his actions had no purpose but to find something other than him to look at.

“Time Lords don’t…” he started, before clearing his throat, “We don’t experience, uh,  _ attraction _ , like humans. We only,” He paused, as if finding the right word. When he looked up, his eyes were shining with the barest hint of mirth, “ _ mate _ , as you said, with one or two people in a lifetime. We have to be compatible.”

“Huh,” Jack said, in lieu of silence, “No sex before marriage, basically?”

The Doctor laughed, “If you like. It’s not societal, though. It’s biological. Well, neurological, I suppose. We just don’t really… we just  _ don’t _ .”

The book had made it sound a lot more dramatic, but from his limited experience with Gallifrey natives, dramatic was part of the society. It made sense that the book wouldn’t translate perfectly, like translating Latin into Cockney slang. Part of him was relieved; some species with a biological imperative to mate for life would die if they separated from their partner for too long. Not that Jack didn’t enjoy travelling with the Doctor, but it was nice to know that he could go back to Cardiff every so often without worrying that either he or the Doctor would suffer for it.

Compatible, though.

How about that.

“So, if you only feel sexual attraction for people you have this  _ connection  _ with,” Jack drawled, walking slowly round the TARDIS center console, “does that mean you fancy me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” the Doctor pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, shaking his head. His shoulders were shaking with laughter though, “I knew you’d be insufferable about this.”

Jack grinned, coming up behind him, hooking his chin over the Doctor’s shoulder, “Are we going steady now? Are we gonna make out under the bleachers? I’ll let you wear my jacket if you want-”

“Shut up, Jack,” the Doctor said, but there was no heat behind it, “You know, I’d make a terrible boyfriend.”

It could have been a brush off. A soft rejection, just to ask him to back off just a little bit. But the Doctor was leaning back into his chest, his face turned slightly towards him, and Jack knew him better than that. On anyone else, he would have taken it at face value, but the Doctor was the worst kind of martyr, so used to outliving everyone around him. Nearly everyone.

“Well, you’re in luck,” Jack said, taking the plunge, wrapping his arms around his friend’s waist, “because I happen to be an excellent boyfriend, and I’ve got all the time in the world to teach you.”

Apparently, it was the right answer, the Doctor turning in his arms, self-indulgent smile written all over his face, “Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack nodded, “and I am an excellent teacher, if I do say so myself.”

The Doctor didn’t respond, just beamed, his hands coming to rest on Jack’s waist. They stayed there for a moment, just enjoying the proximity, the warmth, the easiness of it all.

“So, for the Spring Dance, I’m thinking matching ties-”

“Oh, get off me,” the Doctor shoved him back, but he was laughing, and Jack was laughing, and somehow they were kissing but they were still laughing. It was so easy, so natural. Just them and the TARDIS and anywhere in the universe that they wanted to go.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> One of the biggest holes in this is Martha's feelings for the Doctor never being addressed, which I was painfully aware of. It will be addressed, in a later, much shorter installment.


End file.
